The City of Fear
by DancingStar01
Summary: Eerie lights scare the people in London. Even the best detective in the world can t solve the mysterious case... Part 4 online!
1. Chapter 1

Title: The City of Fear Part 1  
Author: Dancing Star  
Crossover: PSI Factor / Sherlock  
Pairing: Connor / Lindsay, Sherlock / Anne (OC)  
Spoiler: This story takes place after the 3rd season. Oh yes: That it turned out in "His last Vow" Mary was a liar, by the way never happened in this story. Too bad, I liked her very much.  
Rating: 12  
Category: AU, Mystery, Romance  
Content: Eerie lights scare the people in London. Even the best detective in the world can´t solve the mysterious case.  
Notes: I had never dreamed that I´d ever write a Sherlock Holmes story ... :-)  
London, I love you

**The city of fear- Part 1**

People disappeared. More and more people disappeared without a trace in London and Scotland Yard hadn´t even a trace.  
Inspector Lestrade was entrusted with the investigation and because he and his unit where helpless, they asked Sherlock Holmes for help. Sherlock was gone for two years, they believed he was dead, and Sherlock was surprised that the public loved him despite the dubious reputation he had acquired, thanks to the intrigue of his enemy Jim Moriarty. Fortunately Sherlock didn´t think much about the opinion of other people and he was almost proud that Moriarty had fallen for the plan Sherlock and his brother had spun. Greg Lestrade and John Watson were still his best friends. John and Sherlock had a hard time after his return: John had once wished his best friend wouldn´t be dead then he had to learn his wish became true. They needed time to get used to each other again, but then Sherlock was best man at the wedding of John and Mary. Meanwhile, the couple was parents of a little daughter. Sherlock was now living alone in 221b Baker Street. In the basement lived his landlady, Mrs. Hudson.  
Not many people mourned after his "death", but they lived their lives: Molly Hooper was engaged when he returned and meanwhile she was married to Tom.  
First Sherlock noticed that all the missing people were living on the outskirts of London: Not a single one of them was living in the inner city. After Sherlock Holmes had participated in the investigation for a while, the details came to light that many residents in the outskirts of London saw strange lights in the sky in the nights, when the people had disappeared. But then Sherlock was stuck in a dead end, because all the missing persons otherwise had nothing in common: They didn´t even drink the same coffee. Also, there were no traces of forced entry at the crime scenes, which pointed to a kidnapping. There were only neighbors who reported about strange lights and of watches that suddenly had stopped for half an hour.  
Because the case had stuck, Inspector Lestrade got pressure from his superiors. Sherlock Holmes had to arrive today in his office. He had no idea what Lestrade wanted to discuss with him.  
"I have decided to ask for some more help," Lestrade finally said.  
Sherlock sucked in a breath and replied flatly, but still hurt: "Why don´t you just ask my dear older brother if he could contact his friends in the Defense Department for you?"  
"This was my first idea." The Department of Defense wasn´t smarter than themselves  
"I don´t need help," Sherlock said, "I am the best consulting detective in the world..."  
"Obviously we are dealing with a very mysterious and even unsolvable case for you. The People in London are afraid." Lestrade opened the door to his office and waved two men and a woman inside. "This is Professor Connor Doyle, Peter Axon and Lindsay Donner, OSIR."  
"Canada," Sherlock said dryly and looked at the three people from top to bottom. Then he turned away from them and stared at Lestrade's desk.  
"I don´t need help," Sherlock pointed out again.  
"Is that all you can say?", Peter asked.  
"I don´t need help."  
"If you´re interested: We don´t need help as well", Connor said.  
"I don´t need help," Sherlock said, but then he seemed to give in, "But I need an assistant. Anne is incompetent. Unfortunately John will still turn out for a while..." Anne Watson was a distant cousin of John and she usually lived in America. She had only come to England for the opportunity to work with Sherlock Holmes and learn something new. She was a police officer in New York and therefore John Watson believed she was more than suitable as his representative during his parents' time. No one, including the good Inspector Lestrade, hadn´t expected that Sherlock would have problems with her. At their first meeting, Sherlock knew everything about Anne: Anne was an only child, her mother originally came from India and her father owned a horse farm in New York State and was very wealthy. However, Anne didn´t need the New York glitterati: She was well dressed, but omitted known designers, but maybe she couldn´t afford because her salary hadn´t to be very good.  
Sherlock was secretly glad they no longer shared the apartment in which he had first lived with John: Although Anne coped with his whims and she didn´t complain about his arts on the violin and she never complained about the strange experiments he did in his kitchen, Sherlock wasn´t used to live together with a woman. Anne had friends, she laughed when she was happy, she was crying when she was sad. Sherlock found it was very pleasant that she wasn´t interested in him. And he wasn´t used that somebody would leave him alone when he was bored and behaved like a kid. One morning, however, he had caught her in the shower, because he was thinking about a case and with his mind he was somewhere else and of course it felt uncomfortable for him. He developed an aversion to her idea to have dinner with her or they could go for a run in Hyde Park when he was bored, but he had refused. Anne couldn´t understand why he felt bored in London and he had replied he always felt uncomfortable if there was no interesting case. "Go out and watch the people. Play soccer or learn how to play piano, "she suggested. Once, when he no longer could stand his flat in 221b Baker Street, he followed her advice, took the subway to reach Marble Arch and wandered through the Oxford Street to Tottenham. He exposed the tourists and their countries of origin immediately. He knew everything about the people from London and within seconds he knew how these people earned their money. Not even two hours later he was bored again. He gave her another chance and so they visited some pubs on a Friday evening. Sherlock wasn´t used to alcohol, so Anne had to take him home because he was drunken and she was as well. He didn´t know exactly how and why they were ended up on his couch and even less he couldn´t understand why they had kissed. Also, he didn´t remember exactly why he had suggested going to his room so that Mrs. Hudson wouldn´t catch them naked the next morning on the couch and possibly had a heart attack when she brought him the morning tea. The alcohol was to blame, he was sure. This night complicated his work with Anne, but Lestrade and Anne's cousin John Watson didn´t need to know.  
"They are scientists, just like you," Lestrade said to Sherlock, "I thought you´d like that: Finally you meet someone who can withstand your intellect... Give them a chance, because you can´t solve this case, I feel it."  
"You're wrong."  
"They will help you in this investigation," Lestrade added, but he knew he couldn´t threaten him.  
"Or else?", Sherlock's eyes flashed.  
"Otherwise you´re dismissed from the cases of Scotland Yard. For now and all time. I don´t care what price I have to pay…"  
Sherlock seemed to think for a second. Then he rose from the chair where he had sat and looked at the three employees of the OSIR again. "We´ll meet at 15:00 o´clock in my flat: 221b Baker Street," Sherlock said and left.  
When they were alone, Connor, Lindsay and Peter breathed a sigh of relief. "That was easy," Connor finally said to Inspector Lestrade.  
"This is Sherlock Holmes," the inspector noted, "That was almost too easy."

Connor, Lindsay and Peter left their hotel to arrive at Baker Street in time. The fastest way of transport in London was the Metro: Buses and taxis usually needed too long through the city traffic.  
First they got off at Oxford Circus and as Peter noted neither the Oxford Circus nor Piccadilly Circus had something to do with a real circus. "I have told you," Lindsay said, when they re- entered the stairs to the subway and took the Bakerloo Line. When they got out at Baker Street, they mistakenly walked to the left, instead of to the right and that's why they reached the house with the number 221b about five minutes late.  
They knocked and the landlady Mrs. Hudson opened the door. "I suppose you want to see Sherlock Holmes," she said, "He is currently looking for his cigarette emergency supply, but he is right there for you." Mrs. Hudson put the emergency stock secretly in another hiding place. "I secretly hid it in a box in the fireplace," she whispered proudly. The old lady led them up the stairway into Sherlock's apartment.  
It was ruled by big mess. Apparently, the Master Detective really was searching for his cigarettes. "Where are my cigarettes?", Sherlock asked impatiently as he walked past them and almost crashed against Lindsay.  
"I don´t know," Lindsay replied and Sherlock looked at her for a second.  
"I know that you know it," he said, "Your trembling upper lip tells me. Your hands are sweating. Only Mrs. Hudson knows how to hide my cigarettes. You have talked to her", he concluded," So, where is it?"  
"I don´t know. I already said that."  
"I tell you the winning lottery numbers for next week, if you tell me where my cigarettes are."  
Lindsay seemed to think about it for a second.  
"I wouldn´t to that," a pretty woman with long black hair said. Although it was Mrs. Hudson's task, she had brought a tray with cups and a pot of tea for the guests. "Sherlock has already offered this to me. But it didn´t work", as she said it, she looked at him with challenging shining eyes," Only four numbers were right. This brought me two hundred pounds... and fourteen other people in the UK, too..." Then the woman smiled and held out her hand towards them. "I'm Anne Watson, Sherlock Holmes' current assistant."  
Peter immediately noticed how pretty Anne was.  
"My advice to you was worth two hundred pounds," Sherlock repeated, "Better than nothing."  
"And this is just coming out of your mouth," Anne looked at him and left the room with the empty tray.  
All of a sudden Sherlock Holmes seemed to turn into a different person. "Well then," he said, "Then let´s focus on our case... What makes you to travel to England because of some lights?"  
Connor´s answer was quite simple: "We are investigating the paranormal world. If we hadn´t come to England because of some lights, there would be another reason sooner or later."  
"I've never heard about the OSIR before...", Sherlock confessed, "Are you a subdivision of MUFON?"  
"But you have heard of them...," Peter said.  
"Maybe. You said you investigate paranormal phenomena. I assume that you classify the strange lights, which have been spotted over the city and the missing people in the UFO category."  
"That's right. A very good observation, Mr. Holmes."  
"Thank you."  
Anne, still rummaging in the kitchen, smiled when she heard, how Sherlock Holmes actually thanked the people who had received the order to support him from Lestrade. He ever used the words "thank you" so it was worth to be celebrated.  
"We shouldn´t waste time," Sherlock finally suggested,, "Two days ago, a man named Liam Stone disappeared. He's different than the other people... "  
Connor, Lindsay and Peter assumed he would tell them what was so special about Liam Stone and Sherlock did: "Liam Stone was a defrauder. He has already been in prison because of online fraud. "  
"Are you sure his disappearance has something to do with our case?," Peter asked, "This man had a good reason to disappear..."  
"On the night in which he disappeared, neighbors have seen strange lights in the sky and it wasn´t a plane. This has been confirmed by the Royal Air Force." In his mind he added the Air Force also made sure it wasn´t a hot air balloon or a weather phenomenon.  
"What will you do now?", Connor asked when he saw how Sherlock grabbed his long black coat and put it on. It was cold outside, because there were only a few days left until Christmas.  
"We´ll visit the wife of Liam Stone," Sherlock suggested. Then he turned around and left his apartment without a word. "Is he always so strange?", Lindsay wanted to know from Anne and she nodded. Anne even smiled a little, and she grabbed her jacket and slipped inside. They left a notice for Mrs. Hudson and then also left the apartment.  
"He´s crazy," Peter grumbled on the way out. He had no idea that Sherlock was waiting for them in black taxi, and of course he had heard what Peter had said.  
"This is not the case. I would describe myself as a highly functional sociopath."  
"You should make therapy," Peter suggested.  
"I tried," Sherlock replied, "The therapist couldn´t take with me." That's why he had completed therapy after one session.  
"So, I really don´t want to meet him in the dark," Connor whispered and Lindsay giggled before they got into the taxi.

Because they were stuck in a traffic jam, they almost needed an hour.  
The wife of Liam Stone, Lara, didn´t seem to be very excited about the unannounced visit. The reason for this was a very chaotic home, as it turned out, after Sherlock had entered the house. Apparently Lara Stone was ashamed she no longer could control her life since disappearance of her husband a few days ago: In the kitchen, some pizza boxes piled on the table and Sherlock concluded she no longer lived particularly healthy.  
On the couch dirty clothes were lying next to a basket of fresh clothes. On the carpet there was a black spot, which was still wet and smelled strongly of houseplants earth. The curtain was torn and small wallpaper scraps were on the floor.  
With a magnifying glass, Sherlock investigated the wallpaper in detail. Suddenly Lindsay appeared beside him.  
"These tracks are from a cat," Lindsay suspected, but she was pretty sure she was right.  
"The couple didn´t own a cat," Sherlock objected.  
"How do...? But there are scratching marks... "  
"In the kitchen, there are three food cans. That's enough for three more days. I conclude the couple doesn´t own a cat, but they only care about the animal while the actual owner is away from home..."  
"They might just have to go shopping again ...", Connor said.  
"I don´t think so," Sherlock continued, "In the wallpaper behind the couch, there are also traces of red nail polish. I don´t think a cat is wearing nail polish."  
"But..."  
"The nail polish is called _Midnight Passion_. Probably a more expensive product ..."  
"How do you know all this...?", Lindsay wondered why he knew so much about cosmetic products.  
"Mrs. Stone doesn´t wear nail polish although the place looks very expensive and is only equipped with the best. He probably gave his lover an expensive nail polish."  
"I'll go and search the bathroom," Peter promised. As he did so, Sherlock talked to Mrs. Stone. If he spoke to her too tartly, Anne shook her head (but he was right: The cat belonged to a neighbor). Mrs. Stone was crying bitterly, when Sherlock told her about her husband's affair and she told him she had no idea. Nor did she know where her husband was now.  
Sherlock didn´t like it, but Mrs. Stone said the truth: She had nothing to do with the disappearance of her husband.

When they left the house of Mrs. Stone, they met Peter at the front door.  
"I made a full search of the bathroom," he reported, "There is no red nail polish called Midnight Passion."  
"This affair could be a motive for Liam Stone to disappear."  
Anne answered a short phone call when her cell phone rang and therefor she left the group.  
"That was Lestrade," Anne informed them, when she returned, "He says Liam Stone and a man named Max Cartwright have resurfaced." Max Cartwright disappeared like many other people in the outer parts of the city.  
"An angler has found the two men near a river," Anne added.  
"Where are they now?", Connor asked.  
"At the hospital in Paddington."

They drove to the hospital. Because Liam Stone was a former cheater, the police kept him particularly well in mind. Connor, Lindsay, Peter and Anne showed their IDs to the policeman who guarded the room and they were allowed to enter. When Sherlock also wanted to enter the room, the gall, heavy man stood in his way.  
"All right," Connor said to the man, "He belongs to us."  
The policeman hesitated, but then he stepped aside.  
In the room was silence. Apparently Liam Stone and Max Cartwright were very exhausted, because each of them hung on an electrolyte solution. None of them had to be supplied with life-sustaining measures. "And now?," Anne asked.  
At this moment, Liam Stone opened his eyes. "Where...? Where am I?", he asked. When he saw the bright light above his head, he was troubled. Anne and Lindsay had to calm him immediately.  
"It's all right," Lindsay said, "You are in a hospital in London."  
The man seemed relieved.  
"Mr. Stone, do you may remember something that happened in the last few days?", Peter asked.  
"No, I... I can only remember vague shapes and... I remember I sometimes felt pain..."  
"What kind of pain?"  
"I don´t remember exactly..."  
"Can you remember what happened during your abduction?"  
"No." When Liam Stone said this, Sherlock went to the door.  
"What are you doing?", Connor asked.  
"I´m not going to listen to this any longer", Sherlock now turned around to the man in the hospital bed, "I'm assuming this is all a hoax, you've staged so you can steal away with your lover."  
"You know about Libby?", Liam Stone asked stunned.  
"Yes, and your wife now also knows about her… I found red nail polish on the wall behind the couch. Your wife doesn´t wear nail polish..", Sherlock added.  
"You don´t want to know how that nail polish came there."  
"I already know."  
Connor asked the man if it would be OK when they subjected him to a hypnosis session. Maybe that helped his memory to come back. When Stone agreed, he winced under screaming headache.  
"What's going on?", Lindsay asked worried.  
Liam Stone clutched at his head and when he drew back his hand, he had a tuft of his blond hair in his hand. He screamed. He didn´t know if he did it because of fear or because of the fact that the headaches became worse from second to second. Lindsay pressed the emergency button beside the bed. It took less than twenty seconds until a medical team rushed in.  
The doctors sent them away when the headache of Liam Stone almost peaked. And there was nothing more to do for them, so they left the hospital and went home.

It was three o´clock in the morning when there was a knock on the wooden door of 221b Baker Street. Mrs. Hudson didn´t respond to the morning visit, so Sherlock was forced after the tenth knocking to answer the door. He wanted to receive the visit with the grumpiest mood as possible and ask who dared to disturb his thoughts on this important case, but when he saw Connor, Lindsay and Peter, he didn´t. "What's wrong?"  
"I hope we didn´t wake you," Peter said, "It's about Stone and Cartwright. The hospital called: They are dead!"

On the way to Paddington they picked up Anne at her small apartment. Then they took a taxi to St. Bartholomew's Hospital and there they met Molly Hooper, who showed them the bodies of the two men. "I'm sorry I haven´t started the autopsy yet," she apologized and Connor responded in surprise: "The men have died two hours ago. How could you have managed that?"  
"So...", Molly hesitated and looked at Sherlock. Molly was in love with Sherlock before she met her husband Tom, but he never took her and her feelings seriously. She knew it was different with his assistant Anne. It was the way Sherlock looked at Anne...  
"Oh," Connor looked at Sherlock, too, but his voice was reproachful, "Your Majesty likes rapidly performed autopsies. You are accustomed to pressurize other human beings..."  
They focused on the lifeless bodies lying on the examination table in front of them. "The nurses say both died at the same time," Molly informed them.  
"At the same time?", Sherlock repeated, "How is that possible?"  
"I don´t know," admitted Molly.  
"Both men disappeared in the same mysterious manner. Both men appeared a few days later again and both complain of headaches and hair loss and then they die in the same minute, "Lindsay said when she read the Death certificate of Stone and Cartwright. The time of death was 02:01 o´clock. In Cartwright's medical record was also noted he also suffered from severe headaches before his death.  
"Maybe the nurse made a mistake," Peter suggested. He circled once the table, on which the body of Max Cartwright lay.  
"What are these strange wounds on his chest?", he asked. Also on Liam Stone's chest, there was the same burn marks.  
"I don´t know yet," Molly admitted, "Maybe I can tell you, when I examined him. But that will take a few hours..."  
They left their phone numbers so she could call one of them, when she had finished her work.  
They went up to the hospital to talk to the nurse again, who had been on the ward in the past night. "Are you sure the time of death was 02:01 clock for both men?", Connor asked quietly. He knew she wasn´t the first person, who had made a mistake.  
"I'm pretty sure," the young woman replied, "The two men were the strangest patients I have ever seen."  
"We have seen the corpse of Cartwright and Stone," Connor said to her, "They had quite severe burns on the chest. Which doctor has treated this wounds?"  
"Well, there was no reason to treat the burns...", the nurse said Connor and his brow furrowed: "What do you mean?"  
"Liam Stone and this other man..."  
"Max Cartwright?"  
"Yes, exactly. That's his name… Both had burn marks on their bodies when they were brought here", the woman recalled. "The mysterious thing was that these wounds were gone a few hours later without a trace, when the head doctor came to visit... "  
"Where do you keep the clothes of the men?," Anne asked and Connor thought that was a good idea. He didn´t understand why Sherlock believed she was an incompetent assistant.  
"I'll get it for you." The nurse left and returned a little later with two bags in which clothes were packed. They didn´t even have to unpack to see that the fabric was provided with holes, which were arranged in a particular pattern.  
"I don´t know a weapon that can do such a thing," Sherlock Holmes said and Connor was relieved to hear that. The case was still strange and even Sherlock couldn´t put the puzzle pieces together.  
"Glad to hear this from you... We will take the T-shirts and examine it more closely in the laboratory."

To be continued...


	2. Chapter 2

Title: The City of Fear Part 2  
Author: Dancing Star  
Crossover: PSI Factor / Sherlock  
Pairing: Connor / Lindsay, Sherlock / Anne (OC)  
Spoiler: This story takes place after season 3. That it turned out in "His Last Vow" Mary was a liar, by the way never happened in this story.  
Rating: 12  
Category: AU, Mystery, Romance  
What happens: Eerie lights scare the people in London. Even the best detective in the world can´t solve the mysterious case.  
Notes: I had never dreamed that I´d write a Sherlock Holmes story ... :-)

I wish you a merry Christmas! I wish you a merry Christmas!

**The city of fear- Part 2 **

Connor guessed that the laboratory would find high values of radioactivity on the shirts and the laboratory confirmed his guess. The more pieces of the puzzle could be completed, the more he realized, what had happened to the men. He shared his suspicions with Sherlock and he asked him if he was actually serious.  
The OSIR team decided they wanted to see the place where the angler had found Liam Stone and Max Cartwright. Sherlock wasn´t up for motivation, but Lestrade had told him they should go through this case together, otherwise he would punish him until his death in order to be bored.  
They parked their cars on the same afternoon in a parking lot in a ten acre forest. Here they had to proceed by foot, because there were no paved roads in the forest. Connor, Lindsay and Peter were carrying a heavy backpack and Anne offered to carry a box for them. When they walked up a small hill after fifteen minutes of walk, Anne slipped and almost dropped the box. Because Sherlock walked beside her, he caught her in time and Anne thanked for the help, but she didn´t dare even to look at him. Anne walked faster and caught up to Lindsay, who led the group. Peter realized he couldn´t avoid this important issue. So he caught up to Sherlock with his heavy backpack.  
"Is it true that you are a master of disguise?", Peter asked him.  
"Sometimes more, sometimes less," Sherlock replied, "But you didn´t want to ask this."  
Internally Peter clenched a hand into a fist: He realized that Sherlock was really smart. "Do you like Anne?", Peter asked now. He spoke so quietly that Anne and Lindsay couldn´t hear.  
Sherlock hesitated. "Love is a chemical malfunction."  
Of course, Lindsay and Anne heard their conversation anyway and Lindsay could see in the face of her new friend that this statement of Sherlock seemed to hurt her internally.  
"We are now closer to the find spot", Lindsay informed them then.  
Connor was the rear guard of the group. "Keep your eyes and ears open," he told them, "Each of you has a recording device and a camera. If you see something unusual, take a photo of it or film it."  
"All right," Anne agreed. Sherlock didn´t participate in their action. For him the fact counted that he could provide a plausible explanation to Scotland Yard for what happened. "Out here, there is nothing unusual," Sherlock said, unimpressed, "I remind you there are no witnesses for what happened to Liam Stone and Max Cartwright..."  
"Do you want to say, this was a trick?", Connor was horrified.  
"That´s what I wanted to say if you would let me talk..."  
"You saw his T-shirt and his wounds. He couldn´t have done it to himself..." Connor complained.  
"To answer your question," Lindsay added, "There were even a lot of witnesses. At least ten people from the area reported about a mysterious light in the sky, which quickly changes the position. They called the police, you know?"  
"The military claims the planets Jupiter and Mars were to blame for what the people saw," Peter remembered.  
"That might even be true," Sherlock said, and all were surprised he didn´t seem to be sure.  
"You don´t believe in UFOs and aliens," Peter said.  
Anne replied for Sherlock: "He also didn´t believe in the Hound of the Baskervilles, until he has seen it with own eyes," she said. She had already followed the blog of her cousin John in America with great interest. The fact that John invited her to England to work with the famous Sherlock, while John and his wife Mary enjoyed the parenthood was an accolade for Anne.  
Now they reached the river, where the angler had found Liam Stone and Max Cartwright.  
The team built a kind of base camp in the shelter of the trees: Connor and Lindsay built up a tent in which Peter housed the computer with the help of Anne. Then they placed some sensors in the area. While they worked, Sherlock didn´t lift a finger: He just stood there and tapped around on his cell phone.  
"What are you doing?", Peter wanted to know from him.  
"I make sure the theory is true that the planets Mars and Jupiter are responsible for the appearance of light in the sky." But suddenly his cell phone dropped out. He pressed the reset button and nothing happened.  
"Sherlock..."  
"What´s wrong?", he raised his head and looked at the sky, "It's all right." So he focused again on his Blackberry, which didn´t work. He asked if he could use Peter's cell phone.  
"Sure, here it is," Peter gave him the device and Sherlock researched again, if it was possible that a part of the London population believed the planets Mars and Jupiter were light phenomena. "I don´t understand," Sherlock said.  
"It worries me to hear this from you," Anne, who was standing right next to him, answered, "That must mean we have a big problem, isn´t it?"  
"You can call it like that," he finished the internet, "No matter what people have seen in the night sky, it wasn´t a planet or a plane."  
"In other words, you have no idea how to solve this case this time."  
He hated he had to admit. Sherlock merely condescend to nod.  
Peter demanded his phone back now and he was amazed when it suddenly dropped out. "What have you done to my phone?", he asked and put it back into his jacket pocket.  
"All this doesn´t make sense," Sherlock said to himself. He still had no explanation to what had really happened here in the woods and why Liam Stone, a former cheater, and Max Cartwright, a good citizen, were involved.

Peter went to Anne, who stood in the middle of the river with Lindsay on a kind of sandbar and filmed the surrounding area with a video camera, while Connor (and Sherlock) should guard the camp.  
"I hope we don´t have to stay out here this night," Lindsay said and when she heard Peter's footsteps on the sand bank she gave her meter to him and left the two alone.  
"I bet I know what his problem is", Peter suddenly said to Anne.  
"Whose problem? Besides us, there is no one here." She had noticed it had become suspiciously quiet around them. The migratory birds had traveled to the south this time of year, but this forest was almost as quiet as a graveyard.  
"Sherlock is an alien," added Peter and grinned.  
Anne raised her head irritably. "Pardon?"  
"Well, he's freezing cold, selfish, conceited... He practically never shows feelings. The most logical explanation is that he is an alien."  
"So you contradict yourself: You say he was cold but in the same breath you say that he would be selfish... He may seem to be heartless, but he..." Their conversation was interrupted by a scream. With their instruments in their hands, Peter and Anne ran through the ankle-deep river back to camp.  
The cry they had heard came from a young woman they had never seen before. "Please help me," the woman cried. Her face and her pajamas were dirty. Blood dripped from her forehead.  
Sherlock recognized her: Her name was Leslie McKinney and she was wanted by the police and Scotland Yard. Just like many other people who had suddenly disappeared in the suburbs.  
Leslie collapsed and remained unconscious on the floor.  
They worried now much more about the object that appeared behind her: It was a disc-shaped object which floated above the ground and rotated around its own axis. It was made of metal, but didn´t reflect when you looked into it.  
"We need to get the woman away from there necessarily," Connor said to Peter and he agreed. They crawled on the floor to Leslie, each of them took one of her arms and pulled her slowly away from the object, which caused a deep, purring sound.  
Anne was no longer able to move, so she filmed the scene with her camera. When a black shadow in the lower left area of the screen showed up, she raised her head.  
"Sherlock, don´t!",  
He slowly crawled toward the object. "I need to know what it is," he muttered to himself and held out his hand before he reached the object. A small door on the left side of the object opened, a flap and a green light came out. He heard voices from the inside of the object.  
Then the lights lit up the complete environment.  
Their eyes burned so much that they collapsed on the floor. They all felt a severe headache.  
Sherlock turned around and saw that Anne was kneeling on the floor (she had dropped down the camera) and also shielded her eyes. He crawled over to her and held her protectively.  
The next moment everything became dark around them.

When they awoke, it was dusk.  
"How long were we kicked off?", Peter asked. He was desperately looking for a flashlight and finally found it beside him on the floor. The light turned on immediately, as he pushed up the lever. In the light of the torch he saw Lindsay, who just picked up a camera and put the device in her jacket pocket. Then she crawled to Connor, who obviously had sunburn in the face. He was also dizzy.  
Peter got up and staggered to the two. "Hey Connor. Is everything all right?", He asked anxiously, his best friend nodded.  
"What about this woman?", It occurred to Peter then. With a hectic movement he turned around and let the light cone again flitting about the camp. The woman in pajamas was still lying unconscious on the floor.  
"Where are Anne and Sherlock?", Lindsay wanted to know.  
"I'm here," a female voice replied. Anne was sitting just a few feet away from her. Sherlock had to be woken up before them and left the camp. If he was just as dizzy as them, then he was disoriented wandering in the forest. A rustling sound led them to turn around. Peter tried to localize the source of the noise with the beam of the flashlight.  
They all breathed a collective sigh of relief when she saw Sherlock. "Where have you been?", Peter asked.  
He didn´t answer, but went a little insecure to the point where he had seen the object. It had left no traces. Nothing, except a circle with flat grass.  
"My watch has stopped," Sherlock then found out. And he couldn´t initiate the expensive piece.  
"We must return to the city."  
They helped each other getting up.  
"I'm all right again," Peter said, "I'm no longer dizzy. I can drive." His friends agreed.  
"Sherlock, your shirt", Lindsay noticed and he realized that his shirt was covered with many holes in the chest- area.  
"Reminds me of the shirts of Cartwright and Stone", Anne said. She became cold when she realized, what this meant.  
Their eyes fell on the unconscious woman. Her clothes where covered by holes as well.  
"Who is she?", Lindsay asked.  
"This is Leslie McKinney. She´s also among the disappeared persons", Sherlock said.  
Peter nodded knowingly. "Okay. Lindsay stays with Connor and Anne, beware that Sherlock doesn´t run away again. I'll take care of Leslie McKinney. She and Connor have to get in the clinic."

Leslie McKinney was still unconscious when they arrived at the hospital, but Connors sunburn had completely disappeared. Meanwhile, Sherlock wanted to meet his old friend Inspector Lestrade at Scotland Yard and would report to him about what had happened in the forest. It had been his job to figure out what was really happening. And he couldn´t give Lestrade a reasonable explanation. What remained was the truth.

Back at Baker Street Anne started her laptop to continue John´s blog. She wrote about the events of the last few hours and put the memory chip of the camera into the computer, but all the pictures were overexposed and thus completely ruined. Also the film, she had made, was useless.  
She asked Connor and Lindsay for help, who just took care of their files. "Yes, that's perfectly normal," Connor said, "Usually all electrical appliances fail."  
Frustrated Anne sat back down at the kitchen table, but she drew a sketch of the flying object. When she was done, she was startled by an alarm which came from the kitchen.  
"What happened?", Lindsay and Connor also entered the kitchen. Smoke came out of the oven. Anne opened the device and a cloud of black darkened the room.  
"This is one of his experiments!," Anne cried. She grabbed a kitchen towel and put a roasting pan without lid from the oven, in which a pig's head lay. The back of her hand touched the hot wall of the oven and Anne let the roaster fall.  
First Sherlock Holmes was puzzled what uproar his latest experiment caused: Connor ran to the window and opened it, Lindsay threw the pig's head away in disgust and Anne ran cold water over her hand. "Is it very bad?", Lindsay wanted to know when the smoke was gone.  
"I'm all right...", A crescent-shaped, reddish wound was formed on the back of her hand.  
"I'll take care of it," Sherlock's presence astonished them. Even more, they were surprised that he sent them out of the kitchen with the task to bring the smoke alarm to silence. He took a red plastic box from the cupboard and sat down with Anne at the table.  
While he took care of her wound and deposited a burn ointment, he held her hand the whole time. "I've ruined your experiment," she noticed, "I'm sorry."  
"I can repeat it anytime..."  
The door to the kitchen opened. Lindsay held the smoke detector in her hand. "It´s working again." She smiled.  
"It took quite a long time," Sherlock stated who was still holding Anne's hand, "I would have done it in half the time."  
"Of course you would," Lindsay replied just shaking her head and walking away. "Ungrateful guy," she murmured as she was in the living room again.  
Sherlock put a plaster over Anne's wound. "We're done." He put his first aid- kit back in the cupboard and went out. About a minute later they heard music coming from his room: He played a song on his fiddle.  
Lindsay walked into the kitchen again. Anne was still sitting at the table. "Are you all right?", Lindsay asked, worried and Anne nodded. Then she showed her the plaster on her hand.  
"Yes, I have got a first class first aid", Anne tried to smile.  
"You like him," said Lindsay firmly and sat down in the empty chair on which the famous Sherlock Holmes had sat a few seconds ago.  
Anne hesitated. "Yes," she said then, "But either he can´t see it or he doesn´t want to see." Sherlock read people like an open book: He knew all their secrets in seconds. She was sure he knew her secret: namely, that she didn´t think the night in which they both ended up drunken on the couch was misunderstanding and meaningless. They were crashed after Sherlock (drunk) said he had a hobby, he was a good rider and in addition a dancer: Because Anne didn´t believe him, he grabbed her waist and they began to dance a waltz in his living room. Although he had not lied, they both crashed and ended up on the couch, she under him. Sherlock didn´t let her get up from the couch. As always, he giggled childishly when he was drunk. Anne didn´t know who of them had grasped the needle and began to kiss the other. Anyway, it wasn´t just a kiss and she knew now that Sherlock Holmes was not made of ice. Anne felt it was inappropriate to stay all night so she slipped away as soon as he was asleep. When they met the next time, she hardly dared to look him in the eyes. When they got a new, tricky case, it was better.  
"He would quickly get bored with me, because actually I am an uninteresting person," Anne said finally, "I don´t think he is interested in a real bond. The last thing I want is to end up as one of his strange experiments and he can´t stand, for example, to stay at home on a Sunday morning and have nice breakfast and ...", she turned to Lindsay," I want a man who loves me. And I would like to start a family ... I'm...", Anne stopped.  
"What?"  
Anne seemed to have to think. Then she shook her head. "I shouldn´t be here. It's not what I want." Then she hurriedly left the room, grabbed her jacket on the coat rack and left the 221b Baker Street.

The next day was Christmas and Mrs. Hudson had invited them for a little celebration in Baker Street. First, Connor, Lindsay and Peter met the famous John Watson, his wife Mary and their daughter. After drinking a cup of tea, they started to exchange gifts.  
"This is for you," Lindsay said and handed Sherlock a parcel, wrapped in green paper, "Read the card."  
He did what she asked. _"Thanks for your help_," he read, "Actually it was the other way around. I've helped you... "  
"No, I'm sure it wasn´t so," Lindsay folded her arms across the chest. They discussed, but Sherlock won this round as always until John ended their discussion. He told his best friend he should open the gift and thank her for the present (a new watch, after all his watch was broken in their investigations). "Where is Anne?", John finally wanted to know from Sherlock. He wanted to ask his cousin, if what she had representative written for him in his blog had really happened.  
"Don´t you know where she is?," Sherlock asked.  
"I haven´t talked to Anne for three days." They finished their conversation but Watson didn´t miss how Sherlock grabbed his cell phone and wrote Anne a text message.  
_"Come to Baker Street SH_" He waited one minute, grabbed his Blackberry again (the small, red box, which included a necklace, would have almost slipped out of his pocket) and wrote her the next message.  
_"Come to Baker Street Right away. SH"_  
Normally, Anne responded immediately to his messages. And when she didn´t answer, he dialed her phone number. He received the announcement the other party wasn´t reachable.  
Mrs. Hudson seemed to notice his restlessness. "Is something wrong?", she asked.  
"Where is Anne? Did you talk to her?"  
"No," Mrs. Hudson shook her head.  
Lindsay entered the kitchen to get some more tea. " I can do this for you," Mrs. Hudson followed her.  
Sherlock knew that Anne and Lindsay had talked to each other yesterday after he doctored her wound.  
"Where is Anne?", he asked Lindsay.  
"I don´t know," she replied.  
"You know it," hissed Sherlock, "I know you're lying."  
"Okay, I'll say it," she gave in, "She's traveled this morning Paddington station by underground and from there to the airport."  
Sherlock didn´t understand. He had no idea why Anne had left so hastily.  
"Oh dear, you really have no idea of broken hearts, "Lindsay stated, "Anne yesterday said this is not what she had wanted for her life."  
"Was that all?", Sherlock was getting impatient. Their conversation mobilized Connor, Peter and John. They asked what was going on. "Anne has left town," Lindsay told them and turned back to Sherlock, "She also said she shouldn´t be here after what had recently happened between you." Lindsay assumed he would know what she meant, but Sherlock was like a blind man when it was about the feelings of a woman. Even Connor and Peter understood and also John Watson wasn´t thrilled that his cousin had fallen in love with his best friend. Lindsay found it impossible she had to push Sherlock with his nose to the facts.  
"Anne loves you very much," Lindsay added, "But she is worried that she wouldn´t be good enough for you, because you might get bored with her."  
"Is that all?", John asked incredulously. He, his wife Mary, Connor and Peter still stood around Sherlock and Lindsay, listening to the unusual conversation.  
"Anne thinks you aren´t interested in a relationship and ... she wants to have a normal life... With a family."  
They all waited for what these words would cause with Sherlock, but he went to the door and took his coat. "When does the plane leave?"  
"I don´t know," Lindsay said. Her voice and her posture told him she wasn´t lying this time.  
Sherlock didn´t expect he would arrive in time at the airport and that he could stop her. After he entered his apartment that evening alone, only John and Mary were waiting for him. Connor, Lindsay and Peter had gone back to their hotel because they wanted to return to Toronto on the next flight.  
"I'm sorry," John said to his best friend before he and Mary went home, "If you need anything..."  
"There's really something."

_"It's late in the evening_  
_Glass on the side now_  
_I've been sat with you_  
_For most of the night_  
_Ignoring everybody here_  
_We wish they would disappear_  
_So maybe we could get down now_  
_I don't wanna know_  
_If you're getting ahead of the program_  
_I want you to be mine, lady_  
_To hold your body close_  
_Take another step into the no-man's land_  
_For the longest time lady_

_I need you darling,_  
_Come on set the tone_  
_If you feel you're falling,_  
_Won't you let me know?_  
_Ooohh Oohh Ooohh_  
_Ooohh Oohh Ooohh_  
_If you love me, come on get involved_  
_Feel it rushing through you_  
_from your head to toe"_ ("Sing" by Ed Sheeran)

About three days later the phone rang in Connor´s and Lindsay's apartment in the middle of the night. Lindsay walked wearily into the kitchen to answer the call. "Hello, who's there?", she asked.  
"This is Sherlock..."  
"Sherlock Holmes?" All of a sudden she was wide awake.  
"Do you know another Sherlock?", the voice on the other end of the line asked.  
"My goodness, do you know what time it is?", Connor wanted to know: He had intervened in the conversation with the phone in the living room.  
"It´s 05:00 o´clock in London, thus it should be midnight in Toronto..."  
"Why do you call?", Connor asked indignantly and he and Lindsay noticed how Sherlock hesitated for a moment. "I admit I don´t like saying this, but I need your help...", he replied then.  
"Are you sure?", Connor could hardly hide he liked that fact, "Why could the great Sherlock Holmes probably need OUR help?"

"I can´t believe he thinks we're competent enough to throw away his old junk!", Lindsay complained a few days later. She and Connor had returned to London because Sherlock had asked for help. "And why can´t your friend John help?", Lindsay added when, as she grabbed a skull, which was exhibited at the fireplace and put it in a box. She and Connor had received the order from the Sherlock to remove all the odd items from his apartment. Previously, they had already sorted the chaotic bookcase. Mrs. Hudson helped them to pack the collection of test tubes, which had turned his kitchen into a laboratory. "Put the test tubes in John's old room," Sherlock pointed at her. He wanted to set up his laboratory there. And as soon as he had finished the transformation he would fly to New York and get Anne.  
When the bell rang at the door, Mrs. Hudson let in the visit.  
"It's the way John has responded on Christmas Eve on the news that Anne might have feelings for me." Pure, cold reason, of which he preached so often, couldn´t decipher why Anne even felt like this.  
"Listen, Sherlock. It is very nice you are willing to change all of this for Anne, but...", Lindsay looked at Connor and he nodded," But it doesn´t help if you aren´t yourself anymore ... A little example? 'When I was in college I was dating a guy who demanded that I give away my dog because he had an allergy. Blinded by love and stupid as I was I did that and when the guy left me, I had also lost my best friend... You should stop blaming yourself and go out again."  
Sherlock's brow wrinkles. "I don´t understand what this anecdote should express."  
"Yes, you do. I know you understand."  
"She's right," suddenly another voice added. They turned around and saw that Anne was standing in the doorway.  
"Mrs. Hudson let me in, "she explained quickly," She's right. I don´t want you to change fundamentally because of me."  
Lindsay suggested that she and Connor should leave the two alone for a while, so they caught Mrs. Hudson, who also came up the stairs.  
Anne came to the box in which the skull was packed, which stood on the mantelpiece. She unpacked the skull and put it back in its old place.  
"You are back in London," Sherlock said. He immediately realized it was hard for her to stand here in front of him because at her attitude. Her eyes were red and glassy: She had been crying.  
"I think I'll cancel my apartment and return to New York, "Anne's voice was low.  
"I knew you would sooner or later return to London to resolve your apartment. Anne, I beg you, don´t do that."  
She was surprised. "What?"  
"I've been thinking about what you want."  
"How do you know that?"  
"Lindsay told me... To be more precise, she pushed me on it with my nose, when you haven´t appeared on our Christmas party...", Sherlock went to the bookshelf. He was relieved that the little red box had not been eliminated by the cleanup command.  
"This is for you," he handed her the box. Anne hesitated, but then she took the gift and opened the box.  
"It´s a late Christmas gift," Sherlock continued and went to the window to look out, "I'm not good at such things: They say, I´m blind about the feelings of a woman and I don´t see happiness when it´s directly in front of me. It already happened in the past that I have exploited a woman's emotions in order to achieve my goal and I want you to know that I don´t intend to hurt you, Anne. So I hope this gift expresses what I feel for you."  
Anne didn´t manage to avert her eyes from the Necklace: The diamond in the pendant was small, but still beautiful. "Oh, that's..."  
"Lindsay told me that you´re thinking about family planning. Although I have never looked into the fact to give my genes on, but you would be...", he heard her cry and therefore turned around.  
"I... I don´ understand a single word..." Quickly, Anne wiped the tears from her eyes. She had come to London to say goodbye to her friends and now he handed his heart practically on a silver platter. Anne hadn´t even thought he had a heart at all two minutes before.  
"What I really want so say is..." He stepped right in front of her, but it was still very difficult for him.  
Anne wondered what he probably wanted to say and then it dawned on her. "I love you?"  
For a second there was silence in the room. Then Sherlock nodded. "Simple, but expressed accurately."  
Anne flung her arms around his neck and she still held the necklace in her hand. She couldn´t stop crying, even as she felt his arms around her waist. "Oh, I love you too," she wailed. Then she remembered this near was maybe uncomfortable for him. "Sorry," she backed away from him.  
"No, that's fine," the words had hardly left his mouth, Anne hugged him again, but Sherlock thought it appropriate to kiss her now.  
They didn´t know that Mrs. Hudson, Connor and Lindsay had been standing a while at the foot of the stairs and listened to the conversation. They looked very happy and relieved.

Three years later, Sherlock and John had entered the pathology of the hospital with Lestrade to see a corpse that had to do with their current case. They now discussed with the new doctor, what could be the cause of death because the man, lying on the table before them, was a bigwig in the economy. Suddenly Sherlock´s cell phone rang. He didn´t respond, so it rang again one minute later.  
"Won´t you answer?", John asked.  
"It's just a short message," Sherlock took it easy and John was amazed how much Anne's influence had changed him: John couldn´t remember that Sherlock had ever read a book when he was bored, or that he would meet him on a rainy Saturday in a cafe. After the third SMS Sherlock reached for the cell phone and read the message:  
_"Come to Baker Street. AH " _  
_"Please come to Baker Street. AH " _  
_"Baker Street. Right now! AH "_  
With a flourish Sherlock put the mobile phone again into his jacket. "I have to go."  
"Where?", John didn´t understand, but Sherlock was already on the way out the door, "When are you coming back?"  
"I don´t know yet", again something that the former Sherlock Holmes would never have said, "Anne has sent the message. So I think it will take a little longer. You're supposed to know that the birth of a child can´t be planed, John."  
John nodded. He would never have believed that Sherlock and Anne would ever have a baby. Before leaving, Sherlock popped the collar of his black coat, left the pathology of the hospital and got the next taxi, which directly brought him to Anne Holmes at Baker Street.

To be continued…


	3. Chapter 3

Title: The City of Fear Part 3  
Author: Dancing Star  
Crossover: PSI Factor / Sherlock  
Pairing: Connor / Lindsay, Sherlock / Anne (OC)  
Spoiler: This story takes place after the third season. That Mary in "His Last Vow" turned out to be a liar, by the way never happened in this story.  
Rating: 12  
Category: AU, Mystery, Romance  
What happens: Three years have passed by. The mysterious light is back.  
Notes: I have never dreamed that I´d ever write a Sherlock Holmes story... :-)

….I wish you a merry Christmas and a happy new year!

**The City of Fear Part 3**

Mrs. Hudson was waiting nervously that she finally got a message from the hospital. It was eight a.m. in the morning and no one had called so far. A noise from the apartment above her, led her to rush to the door. "Oh Sherlock, you are home?", she asked.  
"For an hour," he confirmed. Apparently he had tried to lie down a bit.  
"How is Anne? And the baby?"  
_He decided he would keep Mrs. Hudson in suspense: In the recent months, she had tried to find out if the baby was a boy or a girl (Sherlock admitted he also wanted to found out, but this was one of the things even he couldn´t figure out with his intelligence. The day on which the doctor finally made a clean sweep, was a pure release). He immediately began to prepare the nursery room in John's old room. His private laboratory moved to the ground floor. "Admit it, you´re looking forward to your baby," Anne had said one day while Sherlock opened a bucket of paint in the room and started painting the wall. "I want to get the room ready as quickly as possible and hide it from everyone until delivery." It gave him a hell of a joy that Mrs. Hudson was on tenterhooks._ Today, December 5th, it was time.  
"Mrs. Hudson, you'll find out how Anne and the baby are", Sherlock promised," I'll get both from the hospital at noon."  
He didn´t even tell her the name. Mrs. Hudson had to wait until the afternoon when all their friends gathered at Baker Street. Their friends waited inside and Anne could see that Sherlock was still nervous when they got out of the taxi. On the other side of the road a pack of photographers was lurking. "They are from _The Times_ and a few people are from the _OK!_ \- magazine..." Sherlock now turned to Anne, who hid the baby in the car seat with a blanket, "I'm sorry the press is still behind me." A photo of their wedding was printed in _InTouch_ magazine and the frustrating thing was that Sherlock had no idea how it came to this.  
"Let's just go in," Anne said and together they entered the house in the city of London, "By the way I don't mind that I'm married to a local celebrity."  
In addition to Mrs. Hudson, Lestrade and Watson their friends Connor and Lindsay from Canada had also gathered. They waited anxiously in the living room with a cup of tea and Mrs. Hudson's homemade cookies.  
Mary welcomed Anne and told her how good she looked. "That's fine. I know I look terrible...", Anne smiled bravely. Then Mary told her that the compliment was sincere.  
"Dear friends and family," Anne began when she showed them the baby with the head of dark hair, "This is Pippa."  
"My goodness," John marveled, "She has really a lot of hair."  
"Yes, everybody can see she´s your baby," Lindsay agreed and welcomed Anne. Because his wife was surrounded by his friends, Sherlock went into the kitchen and John followed him. "Is everything all right?", he sounded worried, "How do you feel?"  
"I'm great," Sherlock confirmed, "I was never better. To be exact, I was never before more in love", he paused," Of course, that would be quite unfair to Anne but the baby means a lot to me."  
"I´m sure, Anne is glad to hear that." They decided they would join the other guests in the living room. Anne currently chatted with Lindsay, who also had a six month old daughter. Sherlock registered that Pippa quietly slept on her mother's arm and Anne looked very happy.  
"It's incredible," suddenly a voice called. It was Connor, who had jumped up from the couch because he had discovered Sherlock's violin. He reached for the musical instrument and Lindsay immediately rolled with her eyes.  
"You´re holding the violin wrong," Sherlock remarked, "This is not a guitar."  
"In fact, I'm a guitar player," Connor said, "During our honeymoon in Hawaii ...", he looked at Lindsay, "...I learned how to play ukulele."  
"Obviously..."  
"So I thought I'd try the violin." Fortunately, Connor put the violin back. Then he asked: "Sherlock, when do we play a game of chess?" Every time, when Connor and Lindsay came to London, he and Sherlock played a game of chess. It has almost become a habit and of course Sherlock won everytime. Lindsay knew Connor hated this fact.  
Of course, they also talked often about the case, which had brought together this unusual group. _When Connor and Lindsay half a year later met with Anne and Sherlock, they reported to them that Scotland Yard hadn´t been very happy about their experience: Lestrade was almost a little offended he hadn´t been there but the fact was even more uncomfortable they couldn´t rationally explain what had happened to Max Cartwright and Liam Stone. "I just told you what happened to the men," Sherlock said to the Scotland Yard inspector back then. "Yes, I know," Lestrade cried, "But I need an explanation, which doesn´t make my boss fire me." He tore his hair. _  
_ "Your ignorance hurts my pride," Sherlock said to Lestrade, "That's a terrible feeling, but it hurts my pride." "Don´t you listen?!... My boss will think I no longer have all my marbles when I talk about this science fiction story." Sherlock agreed with him, although inwardly, he was worried about fact that Stone and Cartwright had died after the close encounter. This meant, everybody who had been in the forest, was in great danger. So John examined them, but he certified them the best of health. John asked his cousin Anne during the investigation how true was the rumor, she and Sherlock had come closer to each other. "How do you know that?", Anne had asked. "So it's true?", John had reacted just as surprised, because it amazed him she wasn´t denying, "Mrs. Hudson told me." They both nodded knowingly at this moment and when John asked again, Anne confirmed the rumors were true._  
Neither Anne nor John had ever believed that Sherlock Holmes was ready for a family. The fact that Anne and Sherlock today held their baby in their arms, made her up for everything. It would take a while for them, until they had become accustomed to see the tall and slim figure with a child in his arms. Anne grinned as she handed her daughter to Sherlock and Pippa continued to sleep peacefully on his arm. And usually it was Sherlock's task to deduce what she thought based on the facial expressions of his wife, but this time Anne was before him: "Don´t even think about waking her," Anne said to him, "Or you'll get a kick so you fly from here to Charing Cross."  
Their friends laughed softly.  
"I know," Sherlock said.  
They had eaten some of Mrs. Hudson´s homemade cookies and drank a cup of tea when the apartment was flooded by a green light. They felt sick and also dizzy. By splitting headache Sherlock remarked that Anne beside him on the couch lost consciousness first. He saw dark, shadowy figures, before he fell into a dreamless sleep.

His head still aced when he woke up. Sherlock noticed that his friends had also lost consciousness and slowly awoke. "What happened?", Lindsay asked. She held her head then she looked at her hands. Her eyes were still blurry.  
"Are you okay?", Connor asked, who made an attempt to get up. His balance wavered and he toppled over. "Mary, is everything alright?", John wanted to know from his wife and she nodded. "What... What happened?"  
The clock on the mantelpiece showed that it was 13:30 clock. So they were passed out for about half an hour.  
"No idea... It's..", Lindsay stopped, "It's like in the unsolved case, we have investigated three years ago." There was no need to ask them if they remembered, of course they did .  
"Where is Anne?", Sherlock asked now. Only the baby was found at the spot on the couch where his wife had been sitting. He took Pippa protectively on his arm and hurried through the apartment. "Anne?"  
Maybe she was woken up before them and had gone into another room. John and Lestrade helped him to look for her. Mrs. Hudson even went to her apartment to look there. "She's not here," she noted.  
"Where can she be?"  
"Does the strange light have something to do with it?", Lindsay asked.  
"This is even very likely," Sherlock replied.  
"We should immediately go to Scotland Yard," Lestrade suggested, "If this light has something to do with the mysterious flying object which was responsible for the disappearance of people three years ago, then we should do everything we can to find Anne. "  
They agreed and immediately put their coats on.  
"Mary, take care of the baby," Sherlock asked and handed Pippa to Mary. She would stay with the kids in Baker Street.  
"Alright," Mary nodded and comforted the baby when Sherlock, John and Lestrade rushed out of the apartment.

Anne's skull boomed when she awoke. She tried to move and realized her hands and feet were tied. Apparently she was sitting on a chair. The seat was so hard that her back hurt. She tried to sit up and for a second she was dizzy.  
"Don´t move," a voice said to her.  
"What?"  
"Better to divide your forces. You will need it..."  
"Who are you?" Directly above her a light bulb was turned on and a man in a fine suit stepped into the light.  
"Let's say I'm an old friend of Sherlock ..."  
"Hard to believe." All her friends were gathered in Baker Street. "Who are you?"  
The man clicked his tongue.  
Anne focused and tried to use what Sherlock had taught her. She saw at first glance he wasn´t working very hard physically because he had very soft hands. She also noticed he had very pale skin, so he didn´t spend much time outside. "May I finally know who I'm dealing with?", she repeated her question.  
"You'll find out soon enough. It´s important that I know with whom I´m dealing with..." He circled her, but with his cold stare he never let her out of sight.  
"Too bad," he said suddenly, "I actually wanted the baby. The loss of his daughter would destroy Sherlock."  
"What?", Anne's voice was shaking.  
He led continued his monologue unimpressed: "But I'm willing to deal with you."  
"What do you want from Sherlock?"  
"I am an old friend, didn´t I say that?... I want him to suffer. He should pay for what he did to me."  
"What has he done to you?", Anne asked, "Maybe I'll find out if you tell me your name…"  
He sat down on a chair in front of her and leaned toward her. His eyes were colder than ever. "My name is Jim Moriarty."

Sherlock and Lestrade talked to the chief of Scotland Yard and reported that the mysterious light phenomena had returned which was responsible for the disappearance of people in the London suburbs three years ago.  
Connor, Lindsay and John had to wait, so Connor made a telephone call. Lindsay wished she could something and she saw John was the same, but they could only wait. (She noted even a Christmas tree was set up at Scotland Yard.)  
Her cell phone rang and she looked at the display. Lindsay was surprised that Connor wrote her a text message, even though he was only a few feet away from her, "I have to talk to you. Follow me unremarkable. CD "  
She raised her eyebrows when she saw his initials at the end of the message, because she knew that Sherlock ended his short messages like this as well. Connor walked past her and how he had asked, she followed him discreetly.  
"Since when do we write only our initials at the end of a text message?", Lindsay asked a bit amused, "Why did you want to talk to me?"  
Connor's face looked serious. "I talked to the Royal Air Force on the phone. They say there are no unusual records on the radar over London in today's lunchtime."  
"What does that mean?"  
"There are only a few aircrafts in the world that can hide this way and don´t appear on the radar."  
Lindsay knew immediately what he was talking. "The Americans?" She knew there were some planes in a secret testing facility in Nevada, which were virtually invisible on radar.  
"No, I don´t think so...", Connor was nervous, "There's something you don´t know. I couldn´t tell you, because Peter and I were committed to the utmost secrecy."  
Although Lindsay knew Connor and Peter were on an important case for some time, she didn´t know exactly what it was. Since she was on maternity leave, she didn´t get much news from the office...  
"An aircraft, which can camouflage on the radar, was stolen from Area 51... Peter and I were assigned to the team, which tries to find the plane."  
"I suppose we have just found it," Sherlock added, who had been listening to their actually secret conversation.

"The TV reports for half an hour about it," Sherlock said, after they entered Lestrade's office and the door had closed behind them. He and John had received a text message from Mary who apparently sat in Baker Street in front of the TV. Sherlock concluded that she and Mrs. Hudson currently had no trouble with the children when the two women found plenty of time to watch the news.  
Sherlock turned on the TV in Lestrade's office and flipped to BBC News. Lestrade complained that he almost felt at home in his office, but then he gave in. The top headline in the BBC's special broadcast was "UFO over London?" and the video of a flying green light, which was made by several people in Baker Street, was shown in a continuous loop.  
"Well, we all know this is not a UFO," Sherlock said. Of course he remembered the flying object, which they had seen in the forest. Once he had discovered the sketch that Anne had made: Anne kept the drawing in a book about cats.  
Sherlock asked Connor to tell them about his secret OSIR- case and they all had to swear they would keep this in private. John was surprised when he learned the legendary Area 51 was true but he promised he wouldn´t even tell Mary.  
"...I guess," Connor concluded his report, "That is this strange green light belongs to the Blackbird, which was stolen from the Americans."  
"But who does that?", Lindsay asked, "And why?" Certainly it was a strategic, impossible masterpiece to steal a missile from one of the most secure U.S. facilities.  
"I haven´t the slightest idea..."

Anne's back still hurt. Her opponent was gone for a while and she took the opportunity to launch an escape attempt. She struggled against her hand and ankle cuffs but she stopped when she heard the squeaky sound of a heavy metal door. Obviously there was a fire door. There were in many buildings with such doors and Anne had to admit she had no idea where she was.  
"Don´t try," Moriarty said to her then walked in a dark corner of the room, "Up there´s a surveillance camera. I can see what is going on in this room at every time, Mrs. Holmes."  
The way he said her name made Anne's blood freeze. Again, Moriarty sat down on the chair across from her, but this time he got up again: He was in a hurry and went to the projector and the screen. Anne had neither noticed and he told her he has had to build up the projector and the screen, when she was sleeping.  
Anne tried to remember whether the items were already in the room when he had first spoken to her, but she wasn´t sure.  
"Your mother is from India, as far as I know," Moriarty said and on the screen now a photo of her mother appeared: Anne was a little girl when the photo was taken and she was sitting on the arm of her Mom. The image came definitely from the archive of her father.  
"Where did you get this photo!?", Anne put her in her bonds, but she could not get up. Apparently even the chair was fixed to the ground. "Did you involve my father into this?"  
"Don´t worry, your father doesn´t know about your problems ...", Moriarty´s face was cold, "I took this picture when I crept on his stud as worker... A cheerful, trusting man, your old dad..." He grinned then he came to the next photo on the canvas.  
He now showed her a picture of her Sherlock, which was shot on the evening on which they had got married was like a hit for Anne, because this Moriarty knew things of her that he couldn´t know. Only Mrs. Hudson, John and Mary were present in the church that evening and it was unlikely one of them was the photographer, because the picture was taken from an elevated position. In addition, all involved were also seen in the photo.  
_Anne remembered the morning when Sherlock had asked her a request: It was Sunday and they actually wanted to meet Mary and John for brunch. However, something was different than usual: Sherlock was troubled. And when she asked him what was wrong, he always replied by saying he was looking for something. Finally, he gave in. "You're an extraordinary woman, Anne," he said, "You make me confused. You've turned my life upside down." _  
_ "Is that good or bad?", Anne asked back a little impressed and sought at this moment in her purse for the phone. _  
_ "At the same time you're the only woman on this planet which understands me... Anne?" _  
_ "Yes?," she turned around and saw that Sherlock knelt in front of her-with a ring box in his hand. His eyes were almost as large as that of a boy in a candy store. She felt how her heart skipped a beat and she dropped her cell phone. She hadn´t expected something like this. Not from him. _  
_ "I've never done this before," he apologized to her, "But do you want to...?" _  
_ At that moment, John and Mary appeared with her daughter in the living room of 221B Baker Street. John was embarrassed he had caught the two in this private moment. He saw the surprise in Anne's face and Sherlock was not happy because of this interruption. So John pushed his wife out again. Sherlock looked at Anne: "So, Anne Watson. Would you do me the honor and become my wife?" _  
_ Of course she said yes. And this was the moment that had led to this evening where she had married Sherlock in the presence of their closest friends. The wedding dress was simple: Anne had always thought her future husband didn´t appreciate such celebrations, but she smiled anyway, when she realized he was holding his breath when he saw her for the first time in the dress. Mary had then insisted they at least made a card for their friends in Canada and so she "forced" the newlyweds to pose in the evening on the deserted Westminster Bridge within sight of Big Ben (as they had learned in hindsight, Lestrade closed the bridge just for them)._  
"How was your honeymoon in New York?", Moriarty asked now.  
"How do you know?", Anne asked back. No one but Mrs. Hudson had known they spent their honeymoon in Anne's former hometown. Anne chose this place because she knew Sherlock couldn´t be bored in New York City.  
Tears welled up in Anne's eyes. She realized this lunatic threatened her entire life. She had no idea what he wanted to reach with this kind of psychological warfare at all.  
"I know everything about Sherlock Holmes."

The news were still discussing the mysterious light phenomenon in the city of London, when the breaking news reported the light was seen again: This time in a peripheral area of the city, which was known for the many factories. "Let's search the area," Lestrade suggested and they prepared to leave when a Scotland Yard employee stopped them.  
"I've got a call", the young woman said.  
"Is it for me?", Lestrade wanted to know.  
"No. It´s for Mr. Holmes."  
He hesitated for a second, but then he picked up the phone. First, he noticed the caller ID was hidden. "This is Sherlock Holmes."  
"Sherlock, It´s me", the voice replied and he recognized her immediately. Sherlock nodded to his friends. "Anne, where are you? Are you okay?"  
"I don´t know where I am," she sobbed, "He got me."  
"Who?" Next, Sherlock heard a cracking noise in the line and then a male voice came in his ear: "I will destroy you." It was clearly Jim Moriarty.  
When Sherlock had realized what was going on, the busy signal was echoing through the line: His interlocutor hung up.  
"It was a test," he realized.  
"What?," asked Lindsay. She and Connor followed Sherlock, who now hastily went to the garage.  
"The flying object in the woods three years ago wasn´t an alien spaceship. It was a test, if it works..."  
"Whether what works?", Connor repeated.  
"The man on the phone was Jim Moriarty, my greater enemy. He said he would destroy me and therefore he needs Anne. This flying object in the forest, which we have seen years ago and the green light, which surprised us in Baker Street…. All that was Moriarty: He is the only person who has the means, to steal the missing aircraft from the best secured facility of the United States. He wants to destroy me." Sherlock's voice was louder. He almost shouted.  
Connor didn´t dare to say anything against Sherlock's Theory. He didn´t understand why this Moriarty would go to all this effort just to harm Sherlock, but he probably would never understand. Nevertheless, they had to find Anne as quickly as possible.

After Anne had refused to tell Sherlock on the phone the things that Moriarty had told her before, he had struck her down with a bumpy beat and left her on the ground until the end of the telephone conversation. Only then he picked her up and put her back on the chair.  
Her head ached. Her back and her hands as well.  
_Anne remembered last Halloween. She was already pregnant and her friends from Canada had gathered in London. Lindsay noticed they now spend every vacation in the United Kingdom since three years and she asked Connor why they wouldn´t move here. They wanted to pass through the London pubs this Halloween. Curfew was, without exception, at 23:00 clock. For Sherlock, it was almost the worst thing that his wife had suggested to dress up and he knew he wouldn´t participate. The more shocked he was when he saw Anne´s costume: She was a pirate. "You can see it's just a costume," he told her. "Why? What told you?", All of a sudden she was in a bad mood. "The buttons on your jacket," Sherlock said and he could see that Connor at this moment still believed he had the perfect costume (he was one of the Blues Brothers), but this hope was soon destroyed by Sherlock._  
She knew her husband was very clever. Therefore, it wasn´t necessary to pray he would find her because Anne knew he could make it. Her head grew heavy and she fell in a dreamless sleep. "Sherlock, help me."

By now it was dark. The night had come over London.  
The journey to the industrial area where the green light had been seen, didn´t last very long, but Sherlock, Connor and Lindsay felt as if they were on the road for an eternity. When they got out of the car, John first noticed the security cameras, which were attached to the factories. Was he mistaken, or was this camera following him, which was attached to a meter-high chain-link fence?  
"This industrial area is huge," John said, "I think there are a hundred factories." It would take days before they would have searched everything.  
"I suggest we split," Connor said, "Lindsay's coming with me. Sherlock, John and Lestrade, you are the second team. "  
They agreed and so Connor and Lindsay went north while the second group went towards the south.

At this late time of day the industrial site was deserted. The steps of Connor and Lindsay echoed between the factory walls. The beam of their flashlight caused an eerie light and much more sinister shadows.  
They came to a huge factory building whose door was open a little. "Let us look into it," Connor suggested. He didn´t think it was allowed to leave open the door of such a large hall and therefore they should take a look.  
Connor entered the factory first. At the other end of the great hall there was a window through which the light of the moon was streaming in. He was astonished when he saw the outline of an airplane and when he turned his flashlight at it, he saw it was indeed the stolen Blackbird. Lindsay admitted she had imagined the aircraft completely different: Actually, she expected it looked like the missile, which they had seen three years ago in the forest.  
Connor put his hand on one of the engines, which was located directly under the wing. "It's still warm," he said. So the plane had been moved recently.  
They walked past the Blackbird and came to an iron door. This door was the only way out of the hall, apart from the gate through which Connor and Lindsay had come in. Connor pulled the door handle. "Locked," he noted.  
Then he and Lindsay heard a scream.  
"Anne!," Lindsay cried. The next moment, the door swung open and a figure threw them to the ground. They heard footsteps on the wet floor: Someone ran away in a hurry. However, Connor and Lindsay made no effort to follow the shape: Instead, they went to Anne, who sat powerless in the next room, bound on a chair.  
"Anne, are you okay?", Lindsay wanted to know from her, while Connor untied her shackles.  
"Where is he?", She asked wearily, "Where is Moriarty?"  
"Don´t worry, he isn´t here," Connor assured her. Then they lifted Anne from the chair and left the hall. "What is it?", Anne asked as she walked past the black plane.  
"This is the flying object, which we saw three years ago in the forest."  
"That's not true," said Anne wearily, "I have made a sketch of it. The flying object in the forest looks different. That's impossible...!"

"That was the second factory, which we have studied," John Watson said.  
"I know," Sherlock replied, "I can count."  
"Guys, don´t fight," Inspector Lestrade intervened. In fact, a ringing in Sherlock's coat pocket interrupted the dispute. He grabbed his cell phone. If Connor and Lindsay should see something strange, they should tell them immediately.  
Sherlock looked at his cell phone and an unusual feeling came over him: His heart skipped a beat as he read the text message from Connor: "We found her. CD "  
He informed John and Lestrade. "I'll call an ambulance," Lestrade said, reaching for his cell phone.  
They ran all the way back until they met Connor and Lindsay. They helped Anne, who looked still very worn and weak.  
"Anne?", Sherlock now grabbed Anne's arm and walked beside her, "Anne, do you hear me?"  
"Yes," she murmured, but then she lost consciousness.  
Connor and Lindsay looked at each other worriedly. Then at last they heard in the distance the sirens of the ambulance that brought Anne to the hospital.

During the three days in which Anne was staying in the hospital, Connor and Lindsay had moved with her child into 221B Baker Street to help Sherlock with Pippa . Lindsay reported to Anne because she had wondered what was going on at home (Secretly Anne had feared Sherlock would use Pippa for one of his strange experiments).  
"I don´t like saying this", Lindsay began, "But Connor and I moved in Mrs. Hudson's guest room in case Sherlock would need help with the baby... "  
"And?" Anne raised her head.  
"The truth is he needs no help: He and Pippa are very well with each other." She told her she woke up last night to get a warm bottle of milk for her own child. She had seen Sherlock, as he sat in his kitchen with the baby in his arms and fed it. The baby looked very happy at that moment and Lindsay found Sherlock was the same. Of course he had noticed her long ago and when he heard the steps removed in the door, he raised his head. Lindsay briefly waved at him, showed him the bottle and decided to go into Mrs. Hudson's Kitchen. In addition, Lindsay had once caught him as he comforted his weeping daughter and loving talked to her. They walked around in the apartment and Sherlock told her he couldn´t wait until she was older. He would teach her everything he knew and if she wanted, he would eventually buy her a pony.  
She found it very touching and Lindsay could see in Anne's eyes she was surprised and at the same time overwhelmed that Sherlock... she hardly dared to speak... that he seemed to be a good father.  
Lindsay had just completed her report, as the door to Anne's room opened and Sherlock walked in. "Speak of the devil...", Lindsay said, getting up from the bed on which she had sat before. She left the room.  
"Lindsay told me you get along well at home with the baby...", Anne smiled.  
"Of course she told you."  
"I'm pretty jealous," she tapped with a hand on the empty spot next her in bed and hinted that he should sit down with her. Sherlock did as he was told and so he took the baby in her arms. "I'm pretty jealous of you, Sherlock Holmes," Anne repeated, "You and your baby, you already have a close bond to each other. I feel almost like an intruder. "  
"That's because you were separated in recent days from the baby," he remarked, "If we can believe in the literature..."  
Anne was amazed. Obviously Sherlock Holmes sometimes had no idea when it came to babies and this time he needed the wise counsel of books. "…Then this problem will be solved in the next few days almost by itself." He had spoken to the doctor: Anne could be dismissed tonight.  
"At home you should rest a bit because the doctors say you have a concussion."  
"Fine. There is no worse idea than spending the Christmas holidays without you here in this hospital, "she said, even though Christmas was more than two weeks away," I think we get along perfectly well at home. "  
"I also think so." They looked at each other for a second.  
"What about Jim Moriarty?", Anne then asked and she could see Sherlock wanted to avoid this answer: "The black aircraft which was found by Connor and Lindsay is actually the Blackbird, which was stolen from the Americans, you know? "  
"I didn´t ask you for that."  
He gave up. "Lestrade searched the entire industrial area," he reported, "There is no trace of Jim Moriarty. He must have escaped, just before we arrived. "(Of course, Moriarty had escaped in time, because he had used the installed surveillance cameras and thus he knew when to expect visit.)  
"Does that mean this devil is still free?"  
Sherlock nodded and took her hand. "I won´t allow he hurts you or the baby."  
They hugged each other. But it wasn´t her life, or the life of her baby, what made her worry, but the life of the person which Moriarty was hunting until the end: The Life of Sherlock Holmes.

Fin


	4. Chapter 4- Silver Blaze

Title: Silver Blaze  
Author: Dancing Star  
Crossover: PSI Factor / Sherlock  
Pairing: Connor / Lindsay, Sherlock / Anne (OC)  
Spoiler: Takes part after my story "The city of fear." I was inspired by Arthur Conan Doyle's story "Silver Blaze" and "Charles Augustus Milverton"  
Rating: 12  
Category: AU, Mystery, Romance  
What happens:  
Notes: I never dreamed that I´d sometimes write a Sherlock Holmes story...:-)

**Silver Blaze**

The sun was shining when a group of cars stopped on a stud farm in southern New York State and shortly afterwards the driver and passengers got out. "We have been driving behind your for ten miles!", Lindsay exclaimed, laughing, then she hugged Anne, "And you didn´t notice us?"  
"We did," Sherlock protested, "I don´t miss anything."  
John, Mary and the children also got out of the dark blue minivan. Inspector Lestrade had joined the trip to the United States and he came in a rented sports car.  
John Watson stretched. "The flight has lasted quite a long time," he complained, "Not to mention of the journey here..."  
"That's only fair," Lindsay said, "After we always met in London for years, it´s nice that you once come to our side of the pond."  
"Yes," Anne smiled, but she found it was a pity they hadn´t traveled to Canada. However, it was very nice to visit her father on his farm in New York State (Anne's dad bred racehorses and when he heard that his daughter would arrive with her family and friends, he had signed one of the horses to a race and promised an exciting spectacle). America gave them a certain peace and Anne felt immediately at home. Their last meeting was almost three years ago. Even the villain Moriarty they had last met a little less than three years ago and Anne was convinced he was still staying in London.  
In London, Anne and Sherlock couldn´t come to rest because of paparazzi. Anne sometimes had been photographed by them when she walked with the baby in Regent's Park: The Park was three minutes away from her home and so she had been spotted there several times. Finally, she couldn´t hide her child in the apartment all day. They both liked London: For Sherlock there was nothing better than breathe in the city and to spin his yarns anywhere and listen to quiet rumors or signs of unsolved crime.  
Anne loved Sherlock. She admired what he did with his wit and his intelligence, but sometimes she was bothered that the press hailed him as a pop star. Anne wasn´t jealous: She was still his assistant and, therefore, they appeared more often than she liked, in one or another British gossip magazine. Once Anne had said to Sherlock, she felt like Kate Middleton or Princess Diana: If she and Sherlock were working on an important case, Anne couldn´t walk a single step in her spare time without being photographed for a gossip magazine. Therefore, she enjoyed, that Sherlock was an unknown personality in America. And her dad was also happy to see them again.  
Jacob Watson had just come out of the house and waved to the group. "Anne," he cried and hugged his daughter. Then he shook his nephew John's hand.  
"Thanks for the invitation, Mr. Watson," Lindsay said.  
"Dad, these are our friends Connor and Lindsay from Canada", Anne introduced them, "And this is our good friend Inspector Lestrade from London."  
"Good day," Lestrade shook Jacob´s hand.  
"Feel right at home", Anne's father then said, "Come, I led around you. We take your luggage to the guest rooms later."  
They were immediately impressed by the stud. Sherlock had to carry Pippa, because Anne was walking next to her father. First, Jacob Watson showed them the main house and then he led them past some paddocks and a small training racecourse for horses. Then they entered the barn.  
The first box on the left side was occupied by a beautiful horse.  
"This is Silver Blaze", Anne's Dad said, "He will run in the New York Cup on Sunday." He had chosen his best race horse. After all it didn´t happen often that his daughter could pursue a race his horses live. He wanted that she was proud of him.  
Silver Blaze was the most beautiful horse, which they had ever seen: The stallion was maroon colored and had a blaze in his face, which ranged from his forehead to his nose and stained the nostrils in a soft pink. Its forelimbs were colored white up to their knees. This was called socks, as far as Lindsay knew.  
"He is really very beautiful," Mary agreed. Another horse nibbled at her Jacket. "Who is that?", Mary asked, as she pushed the elegant, black horse away. "This is Samurai, a half-brother of Silver Blaze," Anne's Dad said, "But he isn´t as successful as his big brother."  
They looked at the other horses in the stable and because the sun was already setting, they decided to enter the main house. Jacob Watson insisted he would bring her bags to the guest rooms, but Connor, John, Sherlock and Lestrade couldn´t allow this under any circumstances. They took care of it and so Jacob at least prepared the barbecue on the terrace behind the house.

At night, Lindsay was awakened by a strange noise. She thought the noise sounded like the clatter of horseshoes and when she again thought about it, she opened her eyes and sat up in her bed. The guest room, where she and Connor lived, was located on the first floor of the main house and offered a view of the stables. Lindsay turned to the window and saw that someone took a horse out of the stable. She believed the shape was a male person. Lindsay wondered who it could be and she wanted to turn around when she almost collided with another shape in a blue robe, which was suddenly beside her and also looked out the window. She screamed with fright and woke Connor.  
"What´s wrong?", he asked.  
"It's only me," the voice murmured and Connor and Lindsay recognized him immediately.  
"Sherlock, what are you doing in our room?", Lindsay asked, "Can´t you sleep?"  
"Jet lag", he simply replied, "I have also heard the noise and because the room of Anne and me has no view on the stall, I came into your room to look."  
Connor got up. "Don´t get me wrong, but I think it´s a little strange to enter a room where other people sleep in the middle of the night."  
"It wasn´t my intention to watch you sleeping," he said dryly. As he talked to them, he hadn´t lost the shape out of his eyes.  
"It´s obvious that this horse is Silver Blaze," he said. Lindsay wanted to know why he was so sure and Sherlock told her that Silver Blaze had a very fine head shape and he was taller than most horses in the stable. Besides, he could see his striking face drawing in the moonlight.  
"I didn´t know that training takes place during the night," Connor said. They looked out of the window. Now the light was turned on in the basement. Shortly after Jacob Watson came out of the house, loud cursing and aiming a gun at the stranger.  
"Apparently, this is no night-time training", Sherlock combined.  
The dark figure let go of Silver Blaze' reins and ran. Jacob didn´t follow the figure: He had to catch his valuable racehorse, which now ran across the yard. As soon as he had caught the thoroughbred, he brought it back to the barn.  
Sherlock, Connor and Lindsay now made their way up the stairs, where they met Anne. "What is going on here?", she asked.  
"Apparently, someone tried to steal Silver Blaze," Lindsay told, "Your father could prevent worse."  
They went out to the stables. Jacob closed the door to Silver Blaze' box and swore softly to himself. "I don´t understand," he said, "For such cases, I have a groom who is sleeping in the stable." In the past, it happened once that the father of Silver Blaze was doped before a race and of course Jacob Watson was expelled for one year of all races when it came out. And because Jacob hadn´t given drugs to his horses, he installed surveillance cameras in the stable. It turned out actually that the coach of the competition sneaked into the stable of the Watsons at night and fed the best horse with forbidden medicine. Jacob then got his license back and the criminal was arrested, but he had learned from it and ever since somebody had to sleep in the stable when a race was about to happen: Jacob had learned that no one shrank from surveillance cameras.  
"Ned ?!," Jacob called for the groom, who should have quartered in the empty box next to Silver Blaze normally. When he switched on the light in the barn, he saw what had happened to Ned: He lay in his sleeping bag and slept like a baby. When Jacob shook his shoulder, the young man didn´t awoke. "Ned? Ned, if this is a trick then you're fired. Do you understand?", he rattled on to his shoulder.  
Sherlock now stood beside Jacob and lifted one of Ned´s lids. "This is not a trick, Jacob," he said, "He's unconscious. Looks like someone dazed him."  
"But how?", Jacob didn´t understand how somebody could daze Ned without making him notice.  
"What's in the cup next to his head?", Anne asked. In fact, next to Ned's head was an empty plastic cup. "We should call the police," Lindsay suggested, "Maybe they can start with the cup."  
"And with the surveillance cameras," Anne added. When her friends called the police, they went to the recorder, which recorded the images of the camera. She was amazed when she saw only a flickering image, she decided to test the camera. "Dad?", Anne then shouted, "Someone has cut the cable to the camera." That meant they didn´t have any video recordings for the police...

When the police arrived in the next morning, Ned Hunter was awake again and of course he had heard nothing of the events in the barn last night. When Sherlock asked him if someone had given him a drink, the young man shook his head, but he admitted that he left his drinks often unattended when he looked for the horses in the stable. Sherlock thought this was a chance to daze the man.  
"...Is there anything else you noticed?", the policeman asked, when he wanted to complete his survey.  
Lestrade, John and Mary shook their heads, because they had heard nothing of the burglary. Jacob Watson, Sherlock, Anne, Lindsay and Connor had already told them everything they knew.  
"But, there's still something!", Anne´s Dad suddenly said, "My trainer, John Straker, didn´t come to work today. He actually should have been here for two hours."  
"Probably he´s late?", the policeman said, "The Coleman Bridge is closed because of an accident."  
"Straker lives three miles down the road," Jacob replied, "Sometimes he comes on foot, he sometimes takes the bike. If he would be ill, he calls."  
"This is indeed unusual," Sherlock agreed with his father-In- law, but the policeman seemed to disagree. He didn´t saw potential in the case, he thought it were a simple attempted theft. He said goodbye to them and told them to call 911 if something happened.

They had a bad feeling about this. Nevertheless, they watched the training in the afternoon. Because the trainer, John Straker, still hadn´t come to work, Jacob took care of training his horses. Ned Hunter, who had recovered so far, just led a young, gray thoroughbred from the track when a police car stopped behind them. The policeman, with whom they had talked this morning, got out.  
"Officer, there's something new?", Anne eagerly asked, standing on the rail with Pippa in her arms.  
"I've got news for you, but there are no good news", he looked at Jacob, "Straker was found dead an hour ago: He was behind a hedge near the main road and his bike was right about him," he handed Jacob a photo, "We believe there has been no accident, because Straker and his bike were covered with ferns and rear branches."  
"Can you tell us where this happened?", Sherlock asked.  
"Go two miles down the road and then turn left. Our people are still busy at the crime scene."  
They thanked him and Anne gave Pippa to her dad. Then John Connor, Lindsay, Lestrade, Sherlock and Anne entered the blue, rented minivan and drove off. The policeman had told them that his colleagues were actually still busy at the crime scene. They arrived in time, because the coroner was just about to put the corpse of John Straker in a small van. "Your colleague Davenport has sent us," Lestrade told the policeman, "I'm Greg Lestrade, Scotland Yard."  
The men laughed unimpressed. "What's going on?", one of them asked, "Is Straker's dead so explosive that we receive help of the famous Scotland Yard?"  
"You know John Straker?", Sherlock asked. The way they talked about the dead, let him assume that they knew him.  
"We share a Bar", one of the policemen said now, "Straker is susceptible to drinking and gambling of all kinds. But apparently he doesn´t need us anymore ..."  
"What do you mean?"  
One of the policemen held up a bag, in which a bundle of money was packed. That had to be about $ 10,000 and of course the men had no idea how a low-paid horse trainer got so much cash.  
"That doesn´t make sense," John muttered, "Someone attacks Straker, kills him and leaves back the money?" Even Sherlock and Anne didn´t understand.  
The group turned away from the police.  
"Maybe Straker was the thief," Lindsay said, "He has done the dirty work for someone and the money comes from the person, who wanted to bring Silver Blaze in their possession. There have been problems and the two met here on this road in dispute. Straker was murdered and the killer has left the cash, because he´s not interested in the money, but in Silver Blaze."  
"No," Sherlock said, when he once more glanced at the body bag, "Straker is too small and too thick. The thief was a tall, slender figure. I don´t doubt that the thief will start a second attempt to steal Silver Blaze." Nevertheless, Sherlock didn´t understand how $ 10,000 fit into this story.  
"And what will you do?", Connor was confused.  
"We wait and take care of monitoring Silver Blaze. Up to the race there are only a few days. "  
Anne gave her credit for her husband that he wanted to help, but she suspected he didn´t do this out of charity, but because he was bored in this rural area and needed a challenge. Maybe it was also because he was just interested what story was behind the motives of the thief.  
"But the local police is already trying to solve the case," Lestrade complained.  
"It takes too long," Anne replied, "I know the police chief of this town a bit: Joe Clancy isn´t known to be the fastest and best investigator. To be honest, I'm not even sure if he had made it to train his huge belly, which he owes consumption of fast food through the years... Someone is trying to harm my father and it would be very pretty if we could take care of this case."

Although it was summer, it was quite chilly outside at night. Before Lindsay was picked up by Sherlock and Anne, Sherlock sent her a text message in which he asked to bring, a flashlight, a crowbar and cable ties. "A lovely shopping list for an honest citizen," Lindsay muttered.  
They met as arranged outside the main house. Lindsay heard a barking dog in the distance, when Sherlock and Anne came to pick her up for the night tour. She pulled on the zipper of her black Jacket and adjusted her black beret as well.  
"Where's Connor?", Sherlock asked in greeting.  
"Hi guys," Lindsay corrected him, "And to answer your question: Connor is still asleep. As far as I can remember, you have personally condemned him to take over the second shift with John and Lestrade."  
"Good," Sherlock confirmed, "It´s important that they take a rest."  
"Why should I bring cable ties and a crowbar?" She knew why they needed a flashlight, but the other items...  
"I don´t know yet if we´ll need the crowbar and the cable ties. I want to be prepared."  
They went to the stable and opened the door with the key they had secretly taken from Jacob. He normally didn´t consider it necessary to lock the barn, but it was better now, if he wanted to know Silver Blaze in safety.  
Like Ned Hunter the night before they went into the box, which was located right next to Silver Blaze. There they lay down in wait and they had to wait about two hours, when at midnight the door to the stable opened. The moonlight cast a long shadow on the ground. They heard a banging noise: Someone had opened the box of Silver Blaze. Then they heard a clatter: Someone put him in his bridle. And last they heard footsteps as the figure also led the horse out of the building.  
Sherlock, Anne and Lindsay came out of hiding.  
"Stop immediately!", Lindsay yelled. The figure next to Silver Blaze's head let go of the reins immediately and ran away. They followed the form which first ran across the yard and then sprinted through the garden of the main house. Apparently, the shape was very nimble and had knowledge about the stud. The unknown person accelerated and Sherlock and Anne ran faster. Lindsay ran behind them when she was suddenly torn to the ground and held by a figure. She beat wildly and hit the stranger´s ribs and finally struck with the crowbar after him in order to get rid of him.  
On a high wooden fence paddock they Sherlock and Anne finally stopped. "Where is he?", she gasped, "We almost caught him… But then he became faster and flew over this fence like a jumping horse." Anne saw now that Lindsay's clothes were dirty. "What happened to you?"  
"Someone has torn me to the ground," she confessed. And apparently their cries had awakened the others in the main house. John had immediately called the police and Connor promised he wanted to replace Lindsay in today´s night shift.

Because everybody was tired since last night, Anne's father made breakfast on the terrace behind the house for the visitors, who helped him to protect Silver Blaze. It was a beautiful, sunny morning, although a little fresh. Some thoroughbred mares and their foals were grazing on a paddock, only twenty feet away from them. Anne thought it was a wonderful view.  
"Just imagine what would have happened if Silver Blaze had been stolen," Anne's father said then he also sat down at the table, "John, didn´t you call the police yesterday?"  
"Yes, I did," he replied. All present people looked at him. "They send a police officer here, who cares about the case."  
Sherlock wondered secretly if that was his earnestness. Apparently the local police didn´t take them seriously enough, because then they would send a whole team and not just a single person.  
"How do you like the stud of my parents?", Anne asked Sherlock now.  
It only took a second until he answered. "It's nice," he said.  
"Hear, hear!", Connor laughed, "The Master has spoken."  
Anne was glad that Sherlock said this. It was the highest honor he could say about a foreign place.  
They laughed at Sherlock's remark, when they saw that the policeman approached, with whom they had spoken about the break yesterday. "Good morning," the uniformed man greeted the group. "I heard there was another attempt to steal a horse last night," he said.  
"Burglars?" Sherlock asked, "So it wasn´t only one?" They all played their role perfectly and acted as if they had no idea. Only Anne's dad was really clueless and so they could continue to talk to the police: "I've already talked to your gardener, Mr. Watson," he turned to Anne's Dad, "There were two. They were almost caught. We even have a description: The first burglar was indeed a bit fast, but the second was caught by your gardener and escaped after a fight. The intruder was a woman, tall and slender and the gardener thinks she had blond hair. Of course, she was wearing dark clothing and a hat and she hit him with a crowbar... "  
"That could have been almost anyone," Sherlock said, "It could be a description of Lindsay."  
"True," the policeman replied, "It could be a description of Lindsay." He laughed. Lindsay rolled her eyes and took a sip of coffee. She thought to herself how much she now hated him in that moment.  
"Now let´s be serious," the policeman said, "I'll stop by in the next few days to check if everything is fine." He slowly walked away from them.  
"Hey stop," Connor half rose from his seat, "Won´t you go to the barn and search for traces?"  
"No," the uniformed man replied, "Nothing has happened so far. I only wanted to tell you about the latest developments... By the way a witness has been reported: We now know where John Straker had $ 10,000 from. His brother died and he inherited the money. Mindy Donaldson can confirm that he had picked up the money from his account yesterday afternoon because he didn´t trust the banks." He waved them goodbye and then walked back to his patrol car.  
So Straker had obviously nothing to do with the attempted theft of Silver Blaze. And the money didn´t come from a mysterious client.  
"Typical police," Anne murmured while she also took a sip of coffee. Sometimes she was ashamed that she had once worked with them. She noticed the strange expression of her father. "What´s wrong, Dad?", Anne anxiously asked.  
"This policeman said my gardener had almost caught the burglar."  
"And?"  
"I don´t employ a gardener."  
"Are you sure?", Anne wanted to know.  
"I know my staff." Jacob Watson currently employed a training rider and grooms for the horses. Previously, of course, he also employed a trainer.  
"Why didn´t you tell the police?", John asked blankly.  
"I think I know of whom he´s talking about," Lindsay said, "I'm not one hundred percent sure, but I think I know who ´s the gardener. When I've beaten him, I saw his face... I think it´s Jim Moriarty."

Everyone at the table gasped.  
"That would make sense," Anne said, "After all he had already been here." Back then Moriarty had stolen a photo of Anne's mother to torture her with that later.  
"You seem to forget it´s basically about a horse", Sherlock remembered, "What motivation should Moriarty have to steal a horse?"  
"I'm not sure," Anne said, shaking her head, "Maybe he thinks it will harm you in any way..."  
"Me?" Sherlock asked.  
"He told me he wants to destroy you," Anne reminded him, "He probably masterminded a sick plan." And she currently couldn´t figure out what it was.

They decided they would keep an eye on Silver Blaze in the following days and watch him and because it was better for their mood, John, Lestrade and Connor took the following night. Anne, Sherlock and Lindsay took the night shift one day later.  
Nothing happened until Sunday, the nights were quiet. On Sunday morning it was finally time to take Silver Blaze to the racecourse, which was eight miles away. The sun was shining and otherwise the weather was at its best.  
Anne's dad talked to some reporters, because Silver Blaze was a favorite in the third race of the day. Sherlock waited outside Silver Blaze's Box: Like a member of the Kings Guard, he held was keeping watch that no one came too close to the stallion.  
Suddenly someone tapped his shoulder. "You become weak," the man said, grinning maliciously.  
"What are you doing here?" Sherlock asked. "Apparently you don´t know me."  
"Oh, I do," Sherlock replied, "I think it's obvious that I know you."  
"If this was true you would know that I have a weakness for all beautiful things. I have set a proud penny on the third race... Don´t worry, I didn´t bet on your horse."  
"Silver Blaze is not my horse," corrected Sherlock, "How did you manage to escape after your attack on the Queen in London has gone wrong?"  
"Well, you can prevent, but you don´t know the background," Moriarty laughed again, "You get weak, my friend. ... You have to give this up and really retire, Sherlock. You really have to", he said.  
"After Sunday."  
"No," Moriarty shook his head, "I'm sure a man of your intelligence will see that this thing can only have one end. There´s onlyone way out. It was a pleasure to see to how you have tackled this thing and I can tell you how painful it would be for me if I were forced to extremes."  
Sherlock only turned around for a second and saw that Anne was walking in front of the barn with Pippa. Anne looked today very beautiful in her fashionable, cream colored dress today. "I know how to prevent...", he said, but when he turned back in the direction were Moriarty had just been standing, he was gone.

Sherlock hastened to go to Anne and Pippa. "You have to leave," he told them.  
"Why?", Anne asked back, "Today is the big day of Silver Blaze and my dad."  
"You and Pippa are in danger. Moriarty is here. I have just spoken to him." With the child in her arms Anne went back to the box of the stallion. Sherlock's steps quickened as he saw that the door was half open. The box was empty, Silver Blaze was gone.

"I don´t understand how this could happen," Sherlock said, when Jacob and the rest of the group asked him about Silver Blaze's disappearance. "I was with Anne about one minute. Moriarty may not have stolen Silver Blaze." That didn´t make sense. Why would he steal a horse? On the other hand, Moriarty had announced he had put a lot of money on the third race and he hadn´t bet on Silver Blaze.  
Lindsay and Connor just came back from the survey of other horse owners and keepers: No one in the barn had seen Silver Blaze. Meanwhile, John had called the police while Lestrade also tried to make himself useful and find the valuable racehorse.  
"How about an apology?", Jacob Watson asked and folded his arms across the chest, "After all, Silver Blaze is gone while you were keeping watch...!"  
"That's really not Sherlock's fault," Anne cried. The blame could wait until they had figured out how the horse could disappear.

The door to Silver Blaze's box was opened. Sherlock therefore concluded that the horse was gone by that door. It was no secret door in the building, through which a racehorse could vanish unnoticed. The group consisting of Connor, Lindsay, Sherlock, Anne and Lestrade walked down the stable area. Sherlock now picked up a straw which was on the floor and sniffed it.  
"Does that mean he knows by the smell whether of a straw out of the box where Silver Blaze is?", Lestrade asked incredulously.  
"Shut up, Lestrade," Sherlock reminded him. He turned the straw in his hands. "He's been here," he added up, "Silver Blaze was here." They left the barn through the south gate and then entered the opposite barn. The barn smelled of fresh hay. When they reached the end of the barn alley, they quickened their pace, when Lindsay suddenly stopped in front of a Box. "There he is!", she cried.  
Silver Blaze was standing in an empty box of the Madison stud. The Madisons were for years the strongest competitors to Watsons. Anne petted the head of the brown stallion.  
"We should get him out of here," Anne suggested, her friends nodded. In the moment in which they wanted to lead the stallion out of the box, they heard a click. Sherlock was the first, who turned around. He wasn´t surprised when he looked into the barrel of a gun, held by Moriarty.  
"So we meet again," he said, "A perfect bait, isn´t it?"  
He was talking about Silver Blaze.  
"You killed John Straker, isn´t it?", Anne asked and Moriarty smiled for a second: "I had to…" Then he turned to Sherlock: "I never believed that you use your brilliant mind to save the horse of your father- in - law." Moriarty began to laugh again.  
"This is boring," Sherlock noted and shrugged his shoulders almost amused. He remembered well how Moriarty also threatened him and John with a gun in a swimming pool area in London.  
"Really?", Moriarty said and pointed the gun suddenly to Anne. Sherlock used the moment in which his companions were horrified by the sight of the weapon: He beat Moriarty's arm to the side, so he no longer aimed at Anne but on the wall. Then he gave him a low blow. Moriarty struck with his left elbow on Sherlock, who stepped back, but only to throw Moriarty with momentum to the ground. Lindsay took the gun, Connor helped Sherlock, who was now fighting with Moriarty on the floor.  
"Stop fighting!," a voice cried. It was the police who was called by John after Silver Blaze was gone. The men grabbed Sherlock, Moriarty and Connor.  
"Gentlemen, this is the kidnapper," Sherlock said as he and Connor wiped the dust off their fancy suits. The police put Moriarty in handcuffs and led him outside. Moriarty struggled, struggled like a madman and he cried with a loud voice: "I'll be back, Holmes! I'll be back."  
They waited until Moriarty had left the building. "What about the second person?", Lindsay asked, "There were two figures we saw in the night a few days ago."  
"We should take Silver Blaze away from here," Anne suggested, "The race starts in half an hour."  
They led the horse back to its stable while Sherlock and Connor worried watched as Moriarty was sat in a police car under observation of some curious people. Ironically, the policeman was among the onlookers, who sought after the kidnappers of Silver Blaze at the farm of Jacob Watson. "That's him," the policeman cried.  
"Who?", asked Jacob Watson.  
"The Auxiliary gardener..." The young man realized the man wasn´t a gardener when his colleagues put him a patrol car.  
"What's his problem?", Connor asked to tear Sherlock out of his thoughts, "What caused this feud between you?"  
"Moriarty is looking for a challenge," Sherlock replied dryly, "He is just like me, but actually we are fundamentally different. That´s what he is trying to prove. And he only can reach this when he trumps me. "He followed Silver Blaze to his stable.

Silver Blaze´s maroon- colored coat glittered everytime when the stallion moved. Then Jacob Watson raised a light racing saddle with red saddle blanket on his back. "I'm so nervous," he said to Anne and she nodded.  
"That must be a great feeling when everyone sees how talented he is... "  
Excited horses and loud calls from trainers and owners sounded through the busy rear areas of the racecourses and horse lovers were found everywhere.  
"We need to get to the parade ring", Jacob said. Silver Blaze itself didn´t seem to be excited, he kept his energy for the race. John and Mary had already left with her daughter to the VIP lounge, where Jacob had rented sufficient sites for all. Lindsay and Connor were waiting at the parade ring. While Jacob ran around the paddock with the stallion, Anne looked around carefully. She tried to assess the competitors, while the stallion turned his rounds before the audience. Silver Blaze was undoubtedly the most beautiful horse in the field, but the others looked good as well. Of course, Sherlock's expertise was very helpful: He stood beside her on the rail of the parade ring, Pippa on his arm and assessed the other horses. Then the jockeys came into the parade ring and Jacob helped the little man climbing into the saddle. Lindsay noticed Jacob somehow looked different today, but she had no idea what it was.  
"Good luck!", Connor said.  
"Don´t say this! This causes bad luck," Lindsay was shocked. She went to the VIP Lounge with Connor, Sherlock and Anne where John and Mary were already waiting for them. Connor prepared his camera. If Silver Blaze should win, he was going to hold this historic moment.  
After the warm-up lap the first horses entered the starting boxes. A total of fifteen horses took part in this race. "The Horses are in the start boxes!", the commentator announced. A bell was the start signal and the pit doors flew open. "Starting is done!"  
John kept his binoculars to his eyes and tried to find Silver Blaze in the rapidly advancing field. "Which position is he?", he asked nervously.  
"Doesn´t look good!", Connor sounded as worried as John.  
"He is in fifth place," Lindsay said disappointed. Sherlock stared at the racetrack. Now he could see how Silver Blaze galloped behind the leading horses. "Maybe the jockey wants to wait until the end and then challenge him," Anne thought and also looked at the racetrack.  
"Look at the display!", Connor said, "The field has set a very fast meantime over the first half mile!" In a split second, Just was so Fleet, a horse that was running at the top and came from Australia, became slower and fell back until he was one of the last horses. The horses ran along the rail and Silver Blaze was still in fourth place.  
"Now Silver Blaze must attack, otherwise he can´t make it," John yelled excitedly through the crowd. Anne saw that another horse was tired and fell back. Then a black stallion and a mare were in front of Silver Blaze. "He doesn´t have time anymore," Connor complained and banged on the table until the coffee cups were dancing. "Theblack horse drifts outwards off and Silver Blaze goes between the two!", Anne cried.  
Silver Blaze caught them. He pushed his way between horses. "And here comes Silver Blaze!", the commentator cried. Now Silver Blaze was next to the two horses and then a neck length front. The brown stallion was no longer tenable: Tail and mane fluttered in the wind and his stride was stretched to the limit. He built his lead to two lengths. And suddenly Silver Blaze became faster until he was eight lengths ahead. The finish line wasn´t far away! Silver Blaze accelerated again and finally flew across the finish line.  
"Silver Blaze wins with a lead of ten lengths and a beaten personal best! Ladies and gentlemen, a horse has never managed to beat the fastest time of the legendary High Flyer", resounded from the speakers. The crowd was cheering. Connor, Lindsay, Sherlock, Anne, Lestrade, John and Mary had already left with their children the VIP Lounge to meet Silver Blaze and Jacob Watson. The stallion pranced around excitedly and Anne hugged him quickly, "You're great, boy!"  
The reporter shot winner photos while Silver Blaze lifted his elegant head and snorted. "Oh God," Anne said stunned.  
"You don´t have to call him God. He would be very happy with Silver Blaze", Jacob laughed and the brown stallion nudged them. He seemed to know he would go down in history with this run. Jacob also beat Sherlock, who still had Pippa on his arm, encouragingly on the shoulder. "Thank you, my son," he said to him, "Thank you for bringing my horse back."

Their vacation in New York had ended five days later. It was a beautiful day, when the group last gathered at the farm for breakfast. Then they made their way to the airport and flew home. (Of course, the visit of the famous detective also made headlines in London: Anne wouldn´t like that the press published a photo of her and Sherlock after their return, on which she had kissed him in the euphoria of Blaze Silver´s victory.) They had spent a beautiful and exciting time in New York. Moriarty was still hunting Sherlock.  
They knew, however, they would never forget this exciting time.

Fin


End file.
